Startled Insects
Encyclopedia
Startled Insects was a British
New Wave
instrumental jazz
group. Their music was a unique mix of experimental synthesizer
textures and ethnic rhythms.
, England as a collective of three producers/multi-instrumentalists, Tim Norfolk, Bob Locke and Richard Grassby-Lewis. Little information has ever been published about the band — the participants' names did not appear on any of the album sleeves, nor were any pictures ever published. Nevertheless the band managed to generate considerable excitement with their first self-published EP and single, enough that Island Records
signed them to their new Antilles New Directions label. Their first album for Island, Curse of the Pheromones (1987), was an underground hit, and the group performed several well-received multi-media tours using film-makers drawn from various backgrounds, such as Frank Passingham, Dave Borthwick, with whom they later produced the sound-track to 'The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb'and Dave Alex Riddett also of Aardman Animations, as well as Richard Kwietniowsi who later directed 'Love and Death on Long Island'. In 1990 they were commissioned by the BBC
to score a ground-breaking 90-minute documentary entitled Lifepulse - a Natural Thriller which attempted to tell the story of evolution on Earth using nothing but BBC Wildlife footage and music. In 1995 they provided the score for another BBC documentary, The Private Life of Plants
.
In 1996 Richard Grassby-Lewis officially left the group. Tim Norfolk and Bob Locke continued on as simply The Insects (dropping "Startled"). In addition to production duties for various artists they started co-writing for Bristol bands such as Massive Attack
, for whom they wrote two hit songs for their Protection
album - "Karma Coma" and "Euro Child." They co-wrote and arranged "The Hunter Gets Captured by The Game" as featured on the Batman Forever
soundtrack and "I Want You" for Madonna
's Something to Remember
. Meanwhile Richard Grassby-Lewis has also continued production duties for artists such as Najma Akhtar
as well as TV and film scoring work.
The Insects began to receive commissions to write music for other documentary specials, including several National Geographic Specials. One of these, Life at the Edge, won them the Emmy Award
for Best Score. By 1997, The Insects had written music for several documentaries, an animated feature film (The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb
), many commercials, two CD-ROMs and a feature film, Love and Death on Long Island
, starring John Hurt
and Jason Priestley
. They also wrote music for Aardman Animations' Angry Kid
. More recently they have written scores for XX/XY
(starring Mark Ruffalo
) and Owning Mahowny
(featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman
and Minnie Driver
). They have also received critical acclaim for the work on the ITV series Wire in the Blood
, now in its sixth season.
As well as film and TV work, The Insects continue to write and produce for other artists. They have produced Alison Moyet
's gold-selling album, Hometime
. Other assignments include the 2000 track "Human
" as featured on Goldfrapp
's debut album Felt Mountain
. Most recent projects include a collaboration with Sean Cook (formerly of Spiritualized and Lupine Howl) called The Flies (Their album, All Too Human was released in 2007) and ± The Mother Beef, an experimental dirty garage rock
n' roll band founded in Bristol 2010/2011.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
New Wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
instrumental jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
group. Their music was a unique mix of experimental synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
textures and ethnic rhythms.
History
Startled Insects began around 1983 in BristolBristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
, England as a collective of three producers/multi-instrumentalists, Tim Norfolk, Bob Locke and Richard Grassby-Lewis. Little information has ever been published about the band — the participants' names did not appear on any of the album sleeves, nor were any pictures ever published. Nevertheless the band managed to generate considerable excitement with their first self-published EP and single, enough that Island Records
Island Records
Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group...
signed them to their new Antilles New Directions label. Their first album for Island, Curse of the Pheromones (1987), was an underground hit, and the group performed several well-received multi-media tours using film-makers drawn from various backgrounds, such as Frank Passingham, Dave Borthwick, with whom they later produced the sound-track to 'The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb'and Dave Alex Riddett also of Aardman Animations, as well as Richard Kwietniowsi who later directed 'Love and Death on Long Island'. In 1990 they were commissioned by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
to score a ground-breaking 90-minute documentary entitled Lifepulse - a Natural Thriller which attempted to tell the story of evolution on Earth using nothing but BBC Wildlife footage and music. In 1995 they provided the score for another BBC documentary, The Private Life of Plants
The Private Life of Plants
The Private Life of Plants is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by David Attenborough, first shown in the UK from 11 January 1995....
.
In 1996 Richard Grassby-Lewis officially left the group. Tim Norfolk and Bob Locke continued on as simply The Insects (dropping "Startled"). In addition to production duties for various artists they started co-writing for Bristol bands such as Massive Attack
Massive Attack
Massive Attack are an English DJ and trip hop duo from Bristol, England consisting of Robert "3D" Del Naja and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall. Working with co-producers, as well as various session musicians and guest vocalists, they make records and tour live. The duo are considered to be of the trip...
, for whom they wrote two hit songs for their Protection
Protection (album)
-Sound:Protection was featured in the top ten of Rolling Stone magazine's 'Coolest Albums of All Time List,' calling it "great music for when you're driving around a city at 4 am," due to the 'chill out' nature of the album...
album - "Karma Coma" and "Euro Child." They co-wrote and arranged "The Hunter Gets Captured by The Game" as featured on the Batman Forever
Batman Forever
Batman Forever is a 1995 American superhero film directed by Joel Schumacher and produced by Tim Burton. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is a sequel to Batman Returns , with Val Kilmer replacing Michael Keaton as Batman...
soundtrack and "I Want You" for Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
's Something to Remember
Something to Remember
Something to Remember is a compilation album by American singer-songwriter Madonna, released on November 7, 1995 by Maverick Records. It came after a controversial period of Madonna in the 1990s and at this time critics had deemed her career over...
. Meanwhile Richard Grassby-Lewis has also continued production duties for artists such as Najma Akhtar
Najma Akhtar
Najma Akhtar born in the UK, also known as Najma, is a British singer of Asian ancestry. She was born in 1964 Chelmsford, England.Najma studied chemical engineering at Aston University, Birmingham: her father, brother and sister are also engineers...
as well as TV and film scoring work.
The Insects began to receive commissions to write music for other documentary specials, including several National Geographic Specials. One of these, Life at the Edge, won them the Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for Best Score. By 1997, The Insects had written music for several documentaries, an animated feature film (The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb
The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb
The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb is a 1993 stop-motion animated film made by bolexbrothers, and funded by the BBC, La Sept, producer Richard Hutchinson and Manga Entertainment, which also distributed the film on video...
), many commercials, two CD-ROMs and a feature film, Love and Death on Long Island
Love and Death on Long Island
Love and Death on Long Island is a 1997 UK / Canadian film directed by Richard Kwietniowski and starring Jason Priestley, John Hurt, Fiona Loewi, Sheila Hancock and Anne Reid....
, starring John Hurt
John Hurt
John Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...
and Jason Priestley
Jason Priestley
Jason Bradford Priestley is a Canadian-American actor and director. He is best known as the virtuous Brandon Walsh on the television series Beverly Hills, 90210, a role which catapulted him to recognition in the early 1990s....
. They also wrote music for Aardman Animations' Angry Kid
Angry Kid
Angry Kid is a series of stop motion animations written, designed, created and directed by Darren Walsh. Angry Kid was produced by Aardman Animations, depicting the mini-adventures of a troubled 15-year-old known as "Angry Kid"...
. More recently they have written scores for XX/XY
XX/XY
XX/XY is a 2002 American romantic drama film starring Mark Ruffalo, Kathleen Robertson and Maya Stange. The film is a romantic drama written and directed by Austin Chick, the title referring to the different chromosome pairings present in men and women. It was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at...
(starring Mark Ruffalo
Mark Ruffalo
Mark Alan Ruffalo is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He starred in films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Zodiac, Shutter Island, Just Like Heaven, You Can Count on Me and The Kids Are All Right for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best...
) and Owning Mahowny
Owning Mahowny
Owning Mahowny is a 2003 movie about gambling addiction with a cast that includes Philip Seymour Hoffman, Minnie Driver, Maury Chaykin and John Hurt.-Plot:...
(featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...
and Minnie Driver
Minnie Driver
Minnie Driver is an English actress and singer-songwriter. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting, as well as for an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe for her work in the television series The Riches.- Early life...
). They have also received critical acclaim for the work on the ITV series Wire in the Blood
Wire in the Blood
Wire in the Blood was a British crime drama television series, devised and produced by Coastal Productions for the ITV network that ran from 2002 to 2009. The series is based on characters created by Val McDermid; a university clinical psychologist, Dr Anthony "Tony" Valentine Hill , is teamed with...
, now in its sixth season.
As well as film and TV work, The Insects continue to write and produce for other artists. They have produced Alison Moyet
Alison Moyet
Alison Moyet , is an English singer, songwriter and performer noted for her bluesy voice.Her UK album sales have reached a certified 2.3 million, with 800,000 singles sold, all in the UK, where all seven of her studio albums and three compilation albums have charted in the Top 40 UK Album Chart,...
's gold-selling album, Hometime
Hometime (album)
Hometime is the title of the fifth studio album of singer/songwriter Alison Moyet.There is a gap of almost eight years between the release of Essex, the singer's previous studio album, and Hometime; this was caused by a dispute between the singer and Sony Music Entertainment, her former record...
. Other assignments include the 2000 track "Human
Human (Goldfrapp song)
"Human" is an electronic song performed by British group Goldfrapp. The song was written and produced by Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory for the duo's debut album Felt Mountain . It was released as the album's third single on 26 February 2001....
" as featured on Goldfrapp
Goldfrapp
Goldfrapp are an English electronic music duo, formed in 1999 in London, England, that consists of Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory ....
's debut album Felt Mountain
Felt Mountain
Felt Mountain is the debut album by English electronic duo Goldfrapp. It was released in the United Kingdom on 11 September 2000 by Mute Records...
. Most recent projects include a collaboration with Sean Cook (formerly of Spiritualized and Lupine Howl) called The Flies (Their album, All Too Human was released in 2007) and ± The Mother Beef, an experimental dirty garage rock
n' roll band founded in Bristol 2010/2011.
Discography
- Startled Insects (a.k.a. Overzoom) (EP, Antenna Records AN10A ML1, 1984)
- "Underworld (Short)" / "Black Spring" / "Underworld (Long)" (12" single, Antenna Records BUG T01, 1985)
- The Mini LPs (incl. all of above) (CDR, 2ndSight Records SSCD007, 2000)
- Curse of the Pheromones (LP, Island/Antilles Records AN 8708, 1987)
- Curse of the Pheromones (CD, Island/Antilles Records 7 90630-2, 1991)
- Curse of the Pheromones (CDR, 2ndSight Records SSCD009, 2000)
- Lifepulse (CD, Island Records, 1991)
- Lifepulse (CDR, 2ndSight Records SSCD010, 2000)
- Skin (a collaboration with Biggie Tembo† of The Bhundu BoysBhundu BoysThe Bhundu Boys were a Zimbabwean band that played a mixture of chimurenga music with American rock and roll, disco, country, and pop influences...
) (CD, Island Records, 1994) - Skin (CDR, 2ndSight Records SSCD004, 1998)